Social Combat

[FishStampede]

I'm sure this one comes up a lot.

In social combat, or just regular rolls, how do you keep player knowledge separate from character? That is, if someone is being evasive but also trying to make it not look like they are being deceptive, how do you do that? Saying they're rolling Deceit is somewhat obvious, after all. Heck, in certain situations having a roll at all can be tipping your hand.

For instance, let's say your players go to someone for information on a subject. She knows a lot about it, and would freely provide the information, but the PCs showing up here at all have her a bit rattled for reasons they should not know. Her goal is to just give enough (truthful) information about the subject they're looking for to get rid of them. She's not lying, she just doesn't want them to get suspicious. Rolling Lore modified by Deceit would be tipping your hand since it's normally a subject she wouldn't even need a Lore roll for. The reverse is also true, particularly when you call for an Empathy roll to oppose her.

What do you do in these sort of situations?

[Orladdin]

This has actually been discussed in the past.  The general consensus is that players need to know when they can effectively spend Fate Points for the system to work correctly, so they kind of do need to know when you're rolling deceit, what your total is, and the severity of the failure should it occur. 

edit: It's tricky to be tricky in FATE games-- but it can be done.  There were a lot of examples in the old thread.  The main thing to remember is, if your outcome is cool enough, your players will let you get away with a lot of things.  They'll give you a lot of conceits to make a good story.  Just be sure you're being fair with them, or you'll lose them.  It's easier to mess up trust in a FATE game than in a classic RPG where the players expect you to be screwing them.  This is a collaborative game, after all.

Let me see if I can dredge up the old thread...  anyone got a link to it?

[Orladdin]

Ah, here's the old thread:

http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,32036.0.html